[Hands0n]

If you are considering buying or are in the market to buy a new 3G Data Card you would do well to read the following article, linked below.

One of the Dennis Group online magazines ITPro has performed a 3G Data Card trial and the results of this are available on-line here (http://www.itpro.co.uk/labs/1/3g-and-hsdpa-data-cards-for-business/introduction.html) - you might have to register to read it!



IT PRO went on the road, literally, to put the latest 3G data cards from the four leading UK operators to the test to see how they performed in five major cities and the world's busiest airport.

Access to the Internet, office systems and email while "on the go" has become a need for many business travellers. While the wireless hotspot revolution has been underway for some time, they are still not ubiquitous. Hotel access is also not a given even in Europe although the US is generally well provisioned unless you end up in a very cheap motel.

The main UK operators, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone have all been providing data cards for many years. Initially these cards supported GPRS, then 3G and now they will work over the High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) networks, often referred to as Mobile Broadband or 3G Broadband.

IT PRO decided to put 3G Data Cards from the leading UK operators to the test to see how they performed in five cities and one airport.

3G cards are most likely to be used by business users to connect to their office while in hotels or at home. To see how widespread support across mainland UK is, IT PRO decided on five cities and one airport at which to test cards. The locations chosen were:

London - Cornhill, near the Bank of England.
Cardiff - Queen Street near Junction with Friary.
Birmingham - Ludgate Hill near Junction with Queensway.
Manchester - Back George Street.
Edinburgh - Lothian Street near Sheraton Grand Hotel.
Heathrow T2 - Costa Coffee between departure and arrivals gate.

The Tests
The tests were designed to simulate typical user scenarios.

1.Installation. Getting the card to install and doing pre-trip tests.
2.Internet. Opening up a link to the internet and browsing a few pages including the BBC News and Sports pages.
3.Speed. Connecting to www.adslguide.org and running its independent speed test. As these cards are sold as being 3G Broadband, we decided on this as a good independent test.
4.Exchange. Connecting to an Exchange server using a web browser and sending/reading email over an Outlook Web Access link. To prevent problems with encrypted connections we chose to do this over http rather than https.
5.IMAP. Connecting to an IMAP mail server using Microsoft Outlook, downloading mail, synchronising folders and sending/receiving email.
6.POP3. Connecting to a POP3 mail server using Microsoft Outlook, downloading mail, synchronising folders and sending/receiving email.
7.VPN Access. Connecting to a corporate network using a Sonicwall firewall and using the Sonicwall Global VPN client to connect to a desktop and server to read files.

None of these tests can be considered in the remotely complex or out of the norm for users.

3G Cards
Each of the operators was given a minimum of five weeks notice, via their press offices, of the tests that we were intending to conduct. This was done via email to ensure that they had the best opportunity to provision services. Despite this both Vodafone and O2 delivered newer cards to us on the morning of the actual test.

In the case of Vodafone this was due to us receiving the wrong card and thus, the company wanted to ensure we had the latest model. O2 changed the card because they had just ceased sale of the original model supplied on the day before the test was due totake place. Thus, O2 wanted to ensure that we had the card that we due to go on sale at the time of publication. Not unreasonable but a little more notice would have been welcome.

The cards that we took were:

O2: Sierra Wireless AirCard 850 data card
Orange Business Everywhere: Option GlobeTrotter GT 3+ EMEA 3G/EDGE data card
T-Mobile Web'n'walk Card with WLAN: Option GlobeTrotter GT Fusion+ EMEA 3G/EDGE data card
Vodafone Mobile Connect: Option GlobeTrotter GT3+ 3G/EDGE data card

These are the current shipping cards from the operators and are available to any user.

Hardware and Software
Each of the cards had its own laptop with a fresh installation of Windows XP and Office 2003. All of the service packs and security patches as of the 8th October 2006 had been applied to the computers and all were tested before we set out using their built in wireless and wired connections. This was so that we could be sure that the laptops were working in a "normal" office environment.

Each card was put through a series of pre-tests where it was installed onto a laptop that had another 3G card installed. This was to see if there was any co-habitation and how easy it would be to install/uninstall or change operator.

An interesting problem that came up during the preparation for these tests was that of PCMCIA ports. Of the last eight laptops that I have tested, none of them had a PCMCIA port. Instead, the manufacturers are beginning to prefer the PC Express clot which seems to have caught the operators and data card manufacturers out.

At the low end of the laptop market, and this includes some of the sub-notebooks, there is no slot at all, just extra USB ports. In the mid range, where there is a slot, it is almost always a PC Express slot. At the high end, the PCMCIA card still exists but the dual slot machines are increasingly becoming PC Express and PCMCIA dual slots.

So far, none of the UK Operators have approved use of any of the small number of PC Express cards on the market. Vodafone and Dell have announced a range of laptops which will support HSDPA and which have a SIM card slot. This should make life easier for mobile workers.

The only real solution for PCMCIA cards came from Elan Digital Systems who have a range of PCMCIA to USB adapters. These are designed to take 3G data cards from multiple vendors and allow you to access them through the USB port. The problem is that each vendor does different things with their cards so there is no single universal adapter.

At present there are two, the U-111 and the U-132. Each works with a different set of cards and Elan has a list on their website as to which card will work with which adapter. They will shortly ship the U-142 which will extend the range of supported cards. Before the test started, we have a U-111 and a U-132 which we tested. Problems with the drivers from O2 meant that we couldn't use the Merlin U530/U560 cards that they provided. However, we were able to get hold of an old T-Mobile U530 with drivers. This proved a success in the Elan U-111.

The U-132 we tested with a Vodafone Mobile Connect card and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately, this was an older Fusion GT 3G Quad card where the serial number started with the letters GL. When we tried the newer Vodafone card or any of the other Fusion cards here nothing worked. This is because the two letters at the start of the serial number are critical to whatever Fusion has done with the card.

The result is that if you want to use a 3G data card with a laptop that doesn't have a PCMCIA port you have a problem. Elan is the only vendor that is shipping PCMCIA to USB converters. Until the operators decide on what PC Express cards or ship their own USB adapters, do not change your laptop. Some operators expect to have some USB support before Christmas but no-one would provide a definitive date while PC Express support will come sometime in 2007. Not a happy solution.

Contd. Next Post


I know that Ben has had famously fabulous success with the Vodafone 3G/2G data card with HSDPA. There are other networks to choose from also. T-Mobile have a fairly well received card on their Web N Walk plan which is astonishing value at the time of writing this.

[Hands0n]

Continuing with the article posted above ....



Deciding which operator was the most capable was based on several things. These were the installation experience, performance and reliability of connection.

Installation
The initial decision to install cards in computers that had previously had older version data cards installed turned out to be illuminating. If you are considering going down this route, even when you are using a new data card from the same operator, STOP. This will take you a great deal of time, generate extreme frustration and persuade you to buy a fleet of carrier pigeons. At times we had to resort to editing the registry to make cards work and that is wholly unacceptable.

The only way we could make things work properly was to install each card on a clean computer. As we are several years into the use of wireless data cards it is not unreasonable for users to have already used the technology. There has to be better install/uninstall routines for this to be a mass market technology. The operators also need to resolve the problem with co-habitation. An increasing number of business users carry personal and business phones. If users want to do a lot of data work, it's not unreasonable that they may do the same with devices. Today, they would need dual boot or multiple computers.

Only O2 got away with installation as it shipped us a card that had no conflict with the older cards either from O2 or the other operators we tested. This was fortunate for O2 as the cards they were selling up to the day before the review had big problems with drivers.

The operators need to get real users in to their offices and stop spending so much time with geeks.

Performance and Reliability
Performance was interesting. This turned the entire test into a tale of two networks, HSDPA vs 3G. Vodafone and T-Mobile were generally very quick with T-Mobile reaching 924kbps and topping the speed chart. O2 and Orange are still to deploy high speed networks and suffered accordingly.

Of all the places we tested, Heathrow and Birmingham threw up the most anomalies. Birmingham was bad for all networks bar Orange in terms of performance. Quite why this should be is a mystery and none of the operators could offer any reason other than it might have been a backhaul problem. This conveniently moves the blame to BT and we have been unable to get any response from them as to what works, if any, were going on that day.

There is a misconception that speed is the reason people often have problems with VPN and connections. This is only marginally true. A bigger problem is that of latency. On previous performance tests, latency has been a huge problem with the VPN tests although here it was irrelevant. That is to be welcomed and suggests that the operators have spent time dealing with issues in their networks.

Orange suffered heavily in these tests and still hasn't fully explained why or when it expects to fix the known problem with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook Web Access.

Only the Vodafone and T-Mobile cards told us when they could connect to a wireless hotspot and only Vodafone found a wireless hotspot at every location. That was a surprise as the T-Mobile wireless LAN deals include BT OpenZone connectivity and we should have been able to find a hotspot at all of these locations. Orange and O2 both have access to hotspots and need to ensure that their cards work properly. Only T-Mobile has currently got it right.

Wireless LAN is a key part of many organisations mobile strategy and vendors not providing it will find it hard to make inroads.

Looking Ahead
Operators are finally looking at the way that they provide data cards. If you renew your phone contract, you get a new telephone or, at worst, have to contribute a small amount to a device with more features. With data cards, renew your account and you get nothing. None of the operators would confirm that they are going to change this policy but it seems that there is a real need if they want to drive data forward.

This leads to another issue where there is action. If you purchase for a very large corporate body today, you can get a bundle of SIM cards to be allocated at will and all go to a single bill. This means you can aggregate voice minutes and data across the users. Operators even provide tools to allow you to do granular management of the cards. As you move down the size of organisation, this option disappears.

A lot of users have purchased their own phones and cards and simply get their bills paid as expenses. Oddly enough, they still have to purchase separate contracts rather than a single contract with two SIM cards, one for the data card and another for the phone. Ironically, I can purchase multiple SIM cards for my family and still have a single aggregated bill. This anomaly needs to be removed and in our conversations with operators after the tests, this issue is recognised and likely to be dealt with during the next year.

At the end of the day, however, the issue is who to spend money with. For most people this will be a decision by their corporate IT departments and out of their hands so expect this to be about the "best deal" than can be negotiated. Where you do have a choice, think long and hard about your technical knowledge and what you want to achieve with the card.

Who and Why
When you take into account the nightmare of installation and the problems of stable connections, the clear winner was Vodafone. Its installation problems were less serious than those using similar cards and with just one exception it connected and ran without problems.

Other operators need to spend more time getting to grips with improving the user experience and validating application connectivity. Resolving the hotspot gamble would also be a big step forward.

Mobile data is there, despite the issues we found but it's still a long way from being as usable as the mobile phone.

[Hands0n]

Well, Vodafone's 3G card, not entirely unsurprisingly. They have been in the Data Card business for quite some time now, and very successfully too. The tariffs are a killer for the average user, at the moment. Will this change? Who knows, but it surely must if the mobile operators are really going to make Data the killer 3G app (why didn't they see this at the outset?).

Here is the ITPro comment on the Vodafone card



The Vodafone 3G card we looked at was a Fusion-based card so suffered from installation problems. If there is another vendors' card installed, you have to purge all the drivers, software and even consider cleaning up the registry. However, as Vodafone have been shipping the Fusion cards for a while now, they do have good compatibility with their earlier cards and when the latest card was installed on a machine with the older drivers it worked first time. The same was true of backward compatibility. Swap the cards out and go back to the older card and it continued working.

You can create your own profiles but not a dedicated profile just for wireless LAN hotspot use. We were working with the v6 software as it is incredibly stable and works with multiple generations of cards. It would have been nice to automatically have it connect to mobile hotspots but we couldn't see where to configure the settings for automatic connection.

One of the odd behaviours we found with this card is that sometimes it would require the computer to be rebooted. This happened when the card was removed without being stopped through the Safely Remove Hardware icon. Apart from this, the card worked well.

The facility to have a wireless LAN profile into which user name and password details could be stored would be a huge benefit. Although the card found hotspots, we were unable to make the connection due to not having a Vodafone login. This is a limitation as it forces people to work with Vodafone when they may already have corporate deals for access to other hotspot providers.

The speed of this card was solid and while it just failed to attain the same level as the T-Mobile card, over the six locations, it was the fastest average speed. Its reliability with applications was almost perfect, just one drop out with IMAP in Edinburgh.

Futures
Vodafone has a PCI Express card available in New Zealand and will offer support for it in the UK. However, Vodafone has chosen not to sell it. It does have plans to introduce a PC Express card but currently will not specify a release date.

They are expected to release their own USB device anytime soon and it will be interesting to see if it is just for the consumer or whether they target the main business market.

Vodafone has said that this card is field upgradeable to the higher HSDPA speeds as they become available and it will be supporting the card for the foreseeable future.

Conclusion
The Vodafone card just makes you want to use it. Installation still leaves a lot to be desired but once installed, it is ideal. Their pricing also appeals to the individual and small business as well as the enterprise.

[Ben]

Excellent, thanks for that Hands0n. I can indeed agree that the Vodafone datacard experience is good, but it's certainly not ready for the 'prime time' just yet if only because of pricing and device availability issues (though Vodafone do have the 3G router, which is a start). When the USB dongle gets released, hopefully with some consumer-friendly pricing for such a consumer-friendly device, availability will suddenly be much higher and I can only hope that a majority of Vodafone customers will suddenly find 'go anywhere' Internet access within their reach.

As for the other networks, well I'm a little disheartened that they didn't do better. Lets face it, Vodafone are hardly famous for being competitive on price and without serious pressure from their rivals they'll no doubt keep tariffs high for as long as possible. All the other networks, including 3, have datacard products yet the obvious performance advantages of Vodafone's rock-solid network mean they are not a credible threat - people like myself will pay extra to be connected to the Vodafone network simply because it's the best for data.

On the technical level, however, even Vodafone have extensive work to do. Latency is still too high, about 200ms just to get out of the Vodafone network, largely due to countless hops along different nodes that data must pass through before it can get out to the wider web, and Content Control, despite having been disabled twice, still pops up every now and then on completely legitimate addresses. Static IP's are not available, DNS servers change on every connection (and, totally unnecessarily, only the assigned DNS servers will work for a given connection - DNS servers from a previous connection, even though they're Vodafone, wont work if they wern't assigned the next time around), and, a crucial flaw when operating a 'limited' service even if it is just via a FUP, there's no real time bandwidth usage metre like you'd have on a fixed broadband service. The core problem? Vodafone, and all the networks, still try and be a telecommunications provider, even when they're doing the job of an ISP.

(I'll end on a totally odd-ball comment. I noticed that Sony's laptop line that includes T-Mobile HSDPA isn't actually an integrated solution! Nu uh! It's just a new ExpressCard adapter (the new PCMCIA) that T-Mobile don't yet sell separately but that ships with the Vaio's. Disgusting! I'd have been gutted to buy a sleek shiny Sony Vaio and have to still have a chunk of plastic hanging out of the side. Vodafone, on the other hand, have a fully integrated solution at play with Dell - and that, IMHO, is the future: laptops that are HSDPA-ready, connected at 1.8mbps+ right out of the box.)

[Hands0n]

(I'll end on a totally odd-ball comment. I noticed that Sony's laptop line that includes T-Mobile HSDPA isn't actually an integrated solution! Nu uh! It's just a new ExpressCard adapter (the new PCMCIA) that T-Mobile don't yet sell separately but that ships with the Vaio's. Disgusting! I'd have been gutted to buy a sleek shiny Sony Vaio and have to still have a chunk of plastic hanging out of the side. Vodafone, on the other hand, have a fully integrated solution at play with Dell - and that, IMHO, is the future: laptops that are HSDPA-ready, connected at 1.8mbps+ right out of the box.)

I have noticed something similar going on in the Laptop world of WiFi. Hardly new technology these days, but PC World, for one, are selling "WiFi Enabled" laptops - gawd you have to read every single word in a promotion these days and fully understand the English being used. These laptops are merely supplied with a USB WiFi adapter which, as you say with the Vaio, look awful hanging out from the side of the machine. They are fragile also, it does not take much to physically damage the adaptor or, worse, the USB port in the laptop itself - none of which is covered under warranty.

Back on topic; a lot of people are going to get caught out with the PCMCIA vs ExpressCard and I wonder if the mobile networks are going to be at all sympathetic in allowing them to return the Data Cards and cancel their contracts!

USB 3G Data devices sound like a reasonably foolproof wait to go - except that USB is not always foolproof. The same issues with older or "foreign" and conflicting drivers, registry hacks etc, exist. You would anticipate that in 2006/7 the technology would be better than "suck it and see".